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In 1948, John and Angie Oremus founded a coal and aggregate company that was dedicated to giving their customers the best in quality and service. That one truck company has grown into Prairie Material Sales, Inc. (Prairie), one of the largest family owned and operated building material suppliers in the region. The founding premise of better quality and service remains unchanged today and continues to be our objective as we grow into the future. From such humble beginnings, working out of their home in Bridgeview, Illinois, John and Angie grew their company as well as their family. As the children grew, they each became more involved in the company. Each day after school, the oldest son Jack, could be found helping his father deliver coal to local customers, doing his part to shovel the coal into their basements. The younger son Tommy and daughter Dorothy would help their mother load the customer’s cars and trucks with the building materials that they sold from their Bridgeview location. As the years went by, their continued hard work and dedication helped the company to grow. Jack and Tommy spent the early morning hours delivering fuel oil to local households. Afterwards they would get ready to go to the local high school for their classes. After school, it was back to work. In time, ready mix concrete and the supply of other building materials became the core of the business. The few used concrete trucks that Prairie owned delivered concrete to local contractors who were literally building the community around them. As the community grew, Prairie also grew and began supplying commercial developments and road projects to an expanding metropolitan area. In the late 60’s, the oldest son Jack took over as President and CEO and continued Prairie’s commitment to quality and service, acquiring several of their competitors as they expanded through the 80’s.This work ethic has continued for over fifty years, and has made Prairie into what is today one of the largest ready mix concrete companies in the country. Prairie owns and operates ready mix locations that service the entire Chicago Metropolitan area, as well as Central Illinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, Detroit, Michigan, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Prairie has also had similar success as the company expanded into supplying brick and mortar materials, contractor tools and other building materials. After purchasing Illinois Brick Company in 1981, the representation of national brick manufacturers has grown steadily. Today Illinois Brick and its sister brick companies, represent the country’s top brick manufacturers in supplying brick to many local residential, commercial and industrial construction projects. This progression has also taken Prairie into the aggregate business, as they own and operate a number limestone quarries and sand and gravel pits throughout the far western suburbs of Chicago, and areas of Peoria and Manteno. The quality of the materials is an essential factor in making the high performance concrete mixes that Prairie is known for. It is a challenge to design concrete that will satisfy the specifications of Chicago’s high rise buildings as well as sophisticated road and bridge projects such as the reconstruction of Wacker Drive. The high standards of quality in these concrete mixes require sourcing of aggregates from remote locations. For this reason, it is imperative that we maintain the flexibility to receive materials by water via barges that are shipped to and unloaded at several of our Chicago production facilities. To feed the plants with the necessary aggregates for concrete production, three of the four Prairie ready mix facilities that are located within the city’s Planned Manufacturing District off load up to six barges of sand and stone each day, five days each week. These barges contain 1500 tons of material, and are shipped daily to these locations year round. The volume of material taken by barge at the Chicago and Halsted location alone can be the equivalent of 900 to 1000 truck loads of material each week, and supports the plants ability to ship 1200 to 1500 truck loads of concrete to contractors each week. The use of local waterways in this fashion is not only more economical, but also protects the City’s infrastructure. Each time you view the city’s skyline, the majority of the concrete used to build those structures was supplied by the facility Prairie operates at Chicago and Halsted, which was acquired in 1994 when Prairie purchased the ready mix production assets of the former Material Service Corporation. This facility plays a vital role in the ongoing construction projects that continuously address the residential, commercial and transportation needs of the City of Chicago. Recent examples of such construction projects can be seen in the high rise apartment complexes at 55 East Erie and 600 North Lake Shore Drive. Other well known projects include Millennium Park, Wacker Drive and the Kennedy Expressway. Each of these developments were serviced from this Chicago and Halsted facility. Current major projects such as the Trump Tower, 50 East Chestnut and portions of the Dan Ryan Expressway are currently being supplied from this location daily. Prairie continues to supply new generations of contractors, large and small, who have come to rely on Prairie for their construction material needs. Still owned and operated by the Oremus family, Prairie looks forward to a future of continued growth, ever mindful of the humble beginnings they came from, and still committed to giving their customers the best quality and service available. After Jack Oremus’ untimely death in 1997, his oldest son Alan became Prairie’s new President and CEO. Alan has sustained the company’s growth expanding into new markets in the far western suburbs of Chicago, as well as acquiring ready mix concrete and brick companies in Milwaukee, Detroit and Indianapolis. Few companies have a founding family’s third generation continuing to direct their growth. John and Angie wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Prairie's Historical Timeline Professional Affiliations
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